Dear Jodi,
At Special Collections at Duke University, we struggled with this question
when we began routinely encoding preliminary inventories to minimally
processed collections in 2001 or so. Figuring out the encoding in our case
was complicated by the fact that, as part of our minimal processing, we
consciously put off certain kinds of physical processing (photocopying
brittle newsprint, removing letters from envelopes, making use copies of
a-v and digital material) until a patron has requested a particular
box(s) within a particular accession/collection. Each box that contained
items that required further processing before use were labeled as such.
These box labels were replicated in "needs further processing" notes that
were added to the container list for each box within each incoming
accession. When the container lists were typed or were created in a
word-processing software, these notes were easy to accommodate. But, as
you point out, in EAD, the <container> isn't meant to be an intellectual
grouping/descriptive level, so we had to find a way to accommodate our
box-by-box descriptive needs. So, we developed three types of preliminary
container lists. In our case, the accession always serves as the series.
When there are additional accessions to a collection, each is treated as a
new series (with its own scope note) and not interfiled. We have an
encoding manual that includes a chapter on preliminary inventories which I
can send to you as an attachment if you want to look at it (it's for EAD
1.0, but the concepts work the same in EAD 2002).
1. Preliminary container list with needs further processing notes for each
box:
<c01 level="series">
<did>
<unittitle>Accession YYYY-0xxx</unittitle>
</did>
<processinfo><p>[overall processing information note about the
accession</p></processinfo>
<accessrestrict><p>[overall restrictions note about the accession, if
required</p></accessrestrict>
<c02>
<did><container type="box">1</container>
<unittitle>Contents of Box 1:</unittitle>
</did>
<processinfo><p>Technical Services staff may need to reformat newspaper
clippings before use.</p></processinfo>
<c03>
<did>
<unittitle>[First folder or folder grouping in box]</unittitle>
</did>
</c03>
<c03>
<did>
<unittitle>[Second folder or folder grouping in box]</unittitle>
</did>
</c03>
etc....
</c02>
other boxes...
</c01>
2. Preliminary container list in which no boxes require further processing
(<container> "floats", but there is no intellectual order to the accession
other than original order):
<c01 level="series">
<did>
<unittitle>Accession YYYY-0xxx</unittitle>
</did>
<accessrestrict><p>[overall restrictions note about the accession, if
required</p></accessrestrict>
<c02>
<did><container type="box">1</container>
<unittitle>[First folder or folder grouping in accession]</unittitle>
</did>
</c02>
<c02>
<did>
<unittitle>[Second folder or folder grouping in accession]</unittitle>
</did>
</c02>
<c02>
<did>
<unittitle>[Third folder or folder grouping in accession]</unittitle>
</did>
</c02>
<c02>
<did><container type="box">1</container>
<unittitle>[Fourth folder or folder grouping in accession]</unittitle>
</did>
</c02>
<c02>
<did>
<unittitle>[Fifth folder or folder grouping in accession]</unittitle>
</did>
</c02>
etc...
</c01>
3. Preliminary container list for accessions with more discernable order
and where needs further processing notes can be attached to groupings of
folders within the accession:
<c01 level="series">
<did>
<unittitle>Accession YYYY-0xxx</unittitle>
</did>
<accessrestrict><p>[overall restrictions note about the accession, if
required</p></accessrestrict>
<c02> <did>
<container type="box">1</container>
<unittitle>[First folder grouping]</unittitle>
</did>
<processinfo>
<p>[Needs further processing]</p>
</processinfo>
</c02>
<c02><did>
<unittitle>[Second folder grouping]</unittitle>
</did></c02>
<c02><did>
<container type="box">2</container>
<unittitle>[Third folder grouping]</unittitle>
</did>
<processinfo>
<p>[Needs further processing.]</p>
</processinfo>
etc....
</c01>
This is what worked for us. Good luck!
Ruth
_______________________________
Ruth Bryan
Archivist/Manuscript Cataloger
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library
Duke University
(919) 660-5982
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Jodi
Allison-Bunnell
<jodi.allison-bun To
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EDU> cc
Sent by: Encoded
Archival Subject
Description List EAD and minimal-level processing
<[log in to unmask]>
03/17/2006 12:59
PM
Please respond to
Encoded Archival
Description List
<[log in to unmask]>
Hi all:
In doing the EAD training for the Northwest Digital Archives and being very
involved with the NWDA Best Practices, I'm hearing requests from our
Northwest Archival Processing Initiative members (who are a test bed for
the
Greene/Meissner minimal-level processing) for some examples of EAD encoding
of finding aids from minimal-level processing.
Although we are not very proscriptive in our standards beyond the
<archdesc>
level, we need some degree of uniformity so that our stylesheet works well.
I know that for many institutions, the descriptions are by the box at a
<c01> or <c02> level, with or without series divisions. Since the box is
not
considered an intellectual level, this doesn't fit so neatly into the known
<c0x> levels in EAD.
I have seen two different solutions to this, and thought of another:
1. From Mark Shelstad at the University of Wyoming: Specify both the c01
and
c02 level as file, with the second designating a subject within a box. This
treats the box as a file, which is intellectually perfectly sensible.
<c01 level="file>
<did>
<unittitle>[title]</unittitle>
</did>
<scopecontent>[sc note]</scopecontent>
<c02 level="file">
<did>
<container type="box">[number]</container>
<unittitle>[title]</unittitle>
<unitdate>[date]</unitdate>
</c02>
</c01>
2. From Donna McCrea at the University of Montana: Specify the c01 as
series, tag the box as c02, but don't specify a level. As Michael Fox has
recently observed on this list, not specifying a level below series may not
matter.
<c01 level="series">
<did>
<unitid>[series #]</unitid>
<unittitle>[title]</unittitle>
<unitdate>[date]</unitdate>
</did>
<c02>
<did>
<container type="box">[box #]</container>
<unittitle>[title]</unittitle>
</did>
<scopecontent><p>[text]</p></scopecontent>
</c02>
</c01>
3. My thought, which may be theoretically correct in some ways but elevates
the box to an intellectual unit, which is not consistent with accepted
theory of archival arrangement. This example would be for a collection
without series and with a list of subjects contained in a boxes, but could
also apply at the c02 level if there were series:
<c01 level="otherlevel" otherlevel="box">
<did><container type="box">Box 1</container><unitdate>[date]</unitdate>
</did>
<scopecontent>[scope and content note: usually list of
subjects]</scopecontent>
</c01>
Are there other examples of a box-level description out there? Any comments
on the relative merits of these solutions would be much appreciated as
well.
Best, Jodi
--
Jodi Allison-Bunnell
Consortium Administrator
Northwest Digital Archives
Oregon State University
418 Woodford
Missoula, MT 59801
(Yes, this is really my address!)
(971) 327-8134
Fax (860) 540-8281
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